


Big Bad Birdie

by orphan_account



Category: Blake Shelton (Musician), Miranda Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Gen, Shelbert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4244961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake never knows for sure what will be waiting for him when he comes home, but the last thing he expected was an ostrich with no sense of humor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Bad Birdie

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally appeared as "The Ostrich Isn't Laughing", written by LiterallyMare. I am now reposting it under the name of MimiRedCrow, after my stories were orphaned without my consent in May of 2014. If you have any questions or concerns about this, feel free to contact me with them. I am very thankful to AO3 for letting me repost and reclaim the stories I wrote and repost them under new titles.

Part of the joy of being married to Miranda Lambert was never knowing what was waiting for you when you got home. And not in the shotgun pointed at your face way, but in the way of not knowing what random four legged creature was going to be waiting for you when you got back. In two years of marriage Blake had seen mostly dogs, but his wife also had brought home cats, horses, several chickens and on one occasion a three legged goat. Okay, maybe joy was stretching it considering they'd had to put a huge fence up around the back of the house for all the dogs in transit, and that damn three legged goat had eaten a hole into the tire of his lawn tractor before Miranda found it a home at a petting zoo. But it was all worth it when he saw how happy it made her to help everything with a fur coat and a sob story she ran across. 

Blake had been out of town for two days doing a commerical for a charity project in New York City. He was relieved as he drove his truck over the country roads that led back to his house. The official start of summer had been three days ago, but it wasn't hot as hell just yet. The weather was perfect and he had three and a half weeks to enjoy it with his wife before either one of them needed to leave Oklahoma again. As he buzzed through the front gate and drove up to the house, he felt like a kid on his first day of summer vacation from school. 

He was barely out of the truck when Miranda greeted him with a hug. He spun his pretty little wife around and kissed her soundly on the mouth. "Hey Baby..." 

"Hey yourself..." She smiled at him. "I didn't think you'd be home so early." 

He was about to open his mouth to explain to her that he got up extra early to get on the plane so he could be home in time to have lunch with his wife. At that moment, however, he saw something move in the paddock behind the barn. The paddock that had been empty when he'd left two days earlier. 

"Ran...what did you bring home this time?" He sighed a little. "Must be a horse if it's in the paddock..."

"Well, not quite..." She bit her lip and took his hand. 

"Not quite? What, is this one missing a leg or bald or something?" He let her start leading him towards the barn and groaned. "I hope it's not a donkey. They call them jackasses for a reason, you know, and it's because of all the damn noise they make."

She smiled and led him through the barn. "Oh, she won't make any noise, I'm sure." 

Blake was starting to get a bad feeling about this and frowned a little. "Miranda...what on earth is SHE?" 

"Her name is Legs." His wife explained simply as they stepped back out into the sunshine near the small paddocks off the side of the barn. 

The horses were in the much larger pasture, standing in a group and staring at the occupant of the paddoock closest to the barn door, looking very confused. Blake followed their eyes, trying to figure out what they were so perplexed over. Despite being a small paddock, at first he couldn't see what was inside of it. And then when he realized exactly what Legs was, his mouth dropped open.

"Miranda Leigh Lambert!" 

"What?" Miranda joined her husband at his elbow. "Did you see her eyelashes? They're so pretty!"

"Miranda....that's a fucking OSTRICH." 

"Well, I'm glad we can move that to the 'no shit' category." She glanced at him. "She was kicked out of the same petting zoo we took Pete."

"Pete?" Blake frowned, then remembered. "Oh yeah, the three legged goat." He sighed and ran his hand over his hair. "Ran, did you ever stop to think about WHY they might have kicked her out?"

Miranda paused a moment and blinked in a way that told Blake she absolutely had not given that any consideration. He hoped ostriches didn't carry diseases or had teeth, but with those legs he was willing to bet the could kick the shit out of you with no problems. This was something that did worry him about her St. Francis complex; he was terrified that some day she would get bitten or even severely injured picking up stray dogs. They'd had the talk about it several times and he made her carry a muzzle and heavy gloves in her truck with strict orders not to pick up strange animals without them on. Though he sincerely doubted that she did. 

"She's very nice...come meet her..." She finally spoke, ducking under the wooden fence of the paddock.

"Shit..." Blake grumbled to himself as opened the gate for himself, his height making ducking under the fence almost impossible. 

They approached the tall bird carefully and it stopped pecking at the ground when they were about ten feet away. He didn't expect it to be so tall, definitely not taller then him. And it was much bigger in terms of mass than he'd expected too. But it did have pretty eyelashes and even seemed to have a kind expression in her eyes.

"Hi Legs..." Miranda walked over to the ostritch and held out her hand. After the big bird seemed okay, she rubbed her hand up her long, pink, lightly haired neck. 

He couldn't help but crack up a little as he kept walking over to the bird to join her. "You realize her neck looks like a giant -" 

"BLAKE!" She snapped at him. "That's not NICE!" 

"What? It looks like a giant penis with a face on it..." He snickered and reached out to pet her. "Look at that neck...you should've named her Dick." 

Miranda was obviously not the least bit happy about her comparing her new friend's neck to the male genitalia. He gave his wife an apologetic smile and she rolled her eyes in return. Paying attention to her instead of the tall bird in front of him was a mistake, however, and he didn't realize it until she snapped at the hand advancing towards her neck. 

"Hey!" He pulled his hand back, frowning. "What's with her?" 

"You just said her neck looks like a penis, Blake, what do you THINK her problem is?"

"She doesn't know what I said." 

Legs lifted her wings and spread them out to her sides, waggling them almost like she was doing a little dance. Miranda and Blake exchanged a quizzical glance and he was just about to ask what the bird was doing when she lunged at him. Dorothy Shelton didn't raise a fool, and if a huge ass bird was chasing him, he wasn't above running. Which is exactly what Blake did, as fast as his cowboy boot clad feet would take him. 

He could hear Miranda laughing as he sprinted across the paddock. It occured to Blake that his wife was not the most helpful in a "When Animals Attack" scenario at that moment. He slowed down slightly and turned to call over his shoulder for her to do something to make the bird stop chasing him. Somehow his feet got tangled up and when he did call out it was on his way down. Even though he put his hands out to catch himself he still got a face full of dirt.

For a moment he just laid there, wondering if the bird was going to keep chasing him. Then he mustered up the courage to sit up and was happy to find the ostrich back on the other side of the pen. His hand hurt and he looked down at it, wincing when he saw the big gash and the blood trickling out of it. Miranda ran to his side, looking alarmed.

"Are you okay?" She saw the blood and her eyes widened. "Oh shit...your hand! Does anything else hurt?"

"Nah, I think I'm okay...other than my pride." He stood up and pulled his iphone out of his pocket, taking a picture of ostrich, her wings still raised in what he now knew was aggression, and his middle finger. Only then did he take a better look at his hand. Shaking his head a little, he couldn't believe that he'd just had his ass kicked by an ostrich.

"Let me see." Miranda took his injured hand very gently between both of her, examining the wound carefully. "Blake...you're going to need stitches."

"Oh shit." He groaned and closed his eyes. "How the hell am I going to explain this to the doctor?" 

Blake spent the next ten minutes trying to convince his wife that he didn't need stitches. There had to be another way, but the blood was still flowing, though sluggishly now. And in the end, Miranda won out. Which was normally how things went around the Shelton house. Twenty minutes after his encounter with Legs the killer ostrich, he was in the front seat of her truck heading for the hospital. 

Since he wasn't driving, Blake took that time to tweet about the attack. On one hand he was a bit embarrased, but the more he thought about it, the more he was starting to find it pretty funny. And if he had a scar on his hand, at least it was going to come with one hell of a story. Though Legs' days at the farm were numbered, more for Miranda's safety then Blake's ego. He imagined the big bird could do some serious damage. 

The nearest hospital was a small, country one on the outskirts of the rural area. Thankfully it meant that they didn't have a very long wait. After giving the nurse doing triage a very good laugh, they were sent back to wait for the doctor almost immediately. Then they did have to do some waiting, but Blake didn't mind it too much since he got to be with Miranda, though this wasn't exactly the kind of quality time they'd wanted. 

"Phone's vibrating." Miranda pointed out and picked it up for Blake now this hand was encased in bandages. "It's a text message..." 

"Read it to me?" He asked her. 

She frowned a little, looking confused. "It's from Adam. 'We're now officially even for season three. Karma's a bitch, isn't it?' What does that mean?" 

Blake rolled his eyes. "Remember that damn parrot Cee Lo brought to the blinds that season? Adam was terrified of it. Every time it would squawk at him he'd jump out of his chair and run away. At first I thought he just didn't want it to shit on his four hundred dollar shirt, but then I realized he was truly afraid of the thing. And the bird knew it. He kept flapping his wings and squawking at him. As you know, the bird was not invited to come back for the next taping." 

"Did he tell that bird it's neck looked like a penis too?" Miranda couldn't help but smirk.

"But it did!" Blake sighed. "I was just stating a fact."

"You offended her." 

"Well, she's going to be a hell of a lot more offended when she finds out I'm changing her name from "Legs" to "Boots." 

"BLAKE TOLLISON SHELTON!" 

He winced, full names were a bad sign. "Well, we can't keep her, honey, she's got an aggression problem."

"I'll find her a home." Miranda sighed. "But you are NOT making boots out of her." 

"Fine, no boots." He agreed. "We could just keep her until Thanksgiving. Start a new tradition." 

"BLAKE!"


End file.
